Roger Severino, VP of Domestic Policy at Heritage and Trump's former Director of the Office of Civil Rights (HHS) and Attorney General for the State of South Carolina, Alan Wilson, are both here to discuss the Supreme Court Hearing yesterday and the oral arguments heard regarding life altering, non-reversible gender affirming surgeries being pushed on minors. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The damage that the 2024 campaign has done, the damage that this decade has done to the Democratic brand is almost unfathomable.
Well, here's an alternative thought: make your own dinner, MAGA.
Make your own sandwiches.
Wipe your own tears.
Troll amongst yourselves with Elon and leave us alone.
Freedom is back in style.
Welcome to the revolution.
Here we're coming to your center.
Gonna play our guitars and sing you a contra song.
Sean Henny, the new Sean Hennedy Show.
More behind the scenes information on breaking news and more bold, inspired solutions for America.
Stay right here for our final news roundup and information overload.
All right, news roundup and information overload hour.
Here's our toll-free telephone number.
It's 800-941-Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, so we had oral arguments yesterday in the United States Supreme Court, and it's a high-profile case involving the right of transgender minors to receive gender transition care, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, one of the most closely watched, potentially impactful cases to come before the high court this year.
Anyway, this case centers on a Tennessee law that bans gender transition treatment for adolescents in the states, by the state.
And by the way, that's the case in about 20 states.
Unlike, say, Minnesota, California, they allow gender-affirming care without parental consent.
Separate issue, but it's related.
The petitioners in the case are the ACLU, which has now sued to overturn the Tennessee law on behalf of parents of three transgender adolescents.
This case was argued by the first transgender attorney appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The questioning was fascinating at times.
Here's Sam Alito citing multiple sources showing the risks of gender-affirming care outweighing the benefits, which totally negated and contradicted the arguments that were being made against the law.
And what's fascinating about it, at the end, Alito actually said, would you like to retract your previous statement and your brief and change it?
Because what you're saying is total BS, basically.
Listen.
In your petition, you made a sweeping statement, which I will quote.
Overwhelming evidence establishes that the appropriate gender-affirming treatment with puberty blockers and hormones directly and substantially improves the physical psychological well-being of transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria.
That was in November 2023.
Now, even before then, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare wrote the phone.
They currently assess, quote, that the risks of puberty blockers and gender-affirming treatment are likely to outweigh the expected benefits of these treatments, which is directly contrary to the sweeping statement in your petition.
After the filing of your petition, of course, we saw the release of the CAS report in the United Kingdom, which found a complete lack of high-quality evidence showing that the benefits of the treatments in question here outweigh the risks.
And so I wonder if you would like to stand by the statement that you made in your petition, or if you think it would now be appropriate to modify that and withdraw the statement that there is overwhelming evidence establishing that these treatments have benefits that greatly outweigh the risks and the dangers.
Then you have, which I think was a pretty fascinating moment, Justice Sotomayor saying, well, every medical treatment has risk, even taking an aspirin.
Cannot eliminate the risk of detransitioners.
So it becomes a pure exercise of weighing benefits versus risk.
And the question of how many minors have to have their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits is one that is best left out.
I'm sorry, counselor.
Every medical treatment has a risk.
Even taking aspirin.
There is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that's going to suffer a harm.
So the question in my mind is not do policymakers decide whether one person's life is more valuable than the millions of others who get relief from this treatment.
The question is, can you stop one sex from the other?
No, that's not the question that is before the court, but that's a separate issue, separate and apart.
Then you have Justice Katanji Brown Jackson comparing the ban on sex changes for kids to bans on interracial marriage.
Listen to this.
That was sort of like the starting point.
The question was whether it was discriminatory because it applied to both races and it wasn't necessarily invidious or whatever.
But as I read the statute here, excuse me, the case here, the court starts off by saying that Virginia is now one of 16 states which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications.
And when you look at the structure of that law, it looks in terms of inconsistency.
You can't do something that is inconsistent with your own characteristics.
It's sort of the same thing.
So it's interesting to me that we now have this different argument.
And I wonder whether Virginia could have gotten away with what they did here by just making a classification argument the way that Tennessee is in this case.
Unbelievable.
I mean, it's almost like a surreal court at this time.
Anyway, in the courtroom yesterday watching oral arguments, Roger Severino, Vice President, Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation and Donald Trump's former director of the Office of Civil Rights and Attorney General for the state of South Carolina, Alan Wilson, both here to discuss this.
Roger, we'll start with you.
What was your take in the courtroom?
Well, it was electric seeing that the ACLU and Preligar were called to the carpet by Justice Alito, by Justice Thomas.
Really, they exposed them as the emperor without any clothes.
As you pointed out, the evidence is not overwhelming that this helps children.
And in fact, I think the most telling question was when Alito said, is there evidence that this actually reduces suicides in gender dysforce youth?
And Strangeo from the ACLU said, no, there is not evidence that supports it.
So the number one argument that the LGBT left has been making, that either you have a live girl or a dead boy, that sort of emotional blackmail they put on children and doctors pushing it in.
and you have to do this because lives are on the line was false.
This does not actually help that at all.
There is no evidence.
Britain has backed off of it.
And that's a key point.
Can a state act to protect vulnerable children, vulnerable children, from a lifetime of being patients, a lifetime of harm, and sterilization?
Because once you get on this treadmill, it's atrogenic.
It keeps you on it.
If you just let puberty take its course, overwhelmingly, over 90% of kids grow out of it.
Used to be a thing called tomboys, right?
Now people say, oh, no, you're not a tomboy.
You're actually a boy.
And that ideology has hurt kids and damaged them for life.
What is your take, Attorney General Alan Wilson?
Well, what I was seeing Justice Sodomayor and Justice Jackson engage in is what we call the fallacy, a straw man fallacy, where you take a legitimate argument, you replace it with a bad argument, a straw man, and then you attack the bad argument.
Justice Jackson used interracial marriage and tried to apply or analogize that to this case of transitioning minors through basically genital mutilation or chemical castration.
And then Sodomayor used the idea of taking aspirin with that genital mutilation or chemical castration.
And they were applying false strawmen fallacies to attack that.
And I thought that was absolutely horrific.
Here's the thing, Sean.
And South Carolina has a law just like Tennessee, which is why I was there.
But states have a general police power to regulate and place reasonable restrictions on minors.
We place restrictions on minors on whether they can sit in the front seat of a car, whether they can buy tobacco, whether or not they can buy alcohol, whether or not they can even consent to having sex.
And we put these reasonable restrictions on minors to protect them.
The other side is making the argument that having your genitals mutilated or being chemically castrated through gender therapy is not as bad as telling a minor they can't smoke a cigarette.
I mean, states have a right to protect the health and welfare of minors, and they're trying to punch holes in that through these ridiculous arguments.
And again, I remind you, Sodomayor was the same person who used the argument in the presidential immunity case that Donald Trump could use SEAL Team 6 to assassinate his political opponents.
What a ridiculous thing to say.
I got the impression, Roger Seperino, that Justice Kavanaugh and other justices that they were sort of leaning on federalism and were feeling and seemingly telegraphing that they believe it should go back to the states.
Did you get that impression?
Yeah, in this sense, they didn't want to constitutionalize the question.
They want to say, and I think Chief Justice Roberts as well, they said, you know what?
This is a medical issue.
We're just a bunch of lawyers that happen to be judges, and you want us to put in a position to say that we're going to decide over the state of Tennessee and other states that we're going to constantly...
By the way, that was really highlighted by Sotomayor making the statement about comparing this to aspirin.
Oh, of course.
And states, look, testosterone, that's one of the drugs that are at issue here.
You can't just walk into a CBS and say, hey, I want some testosterone, or I want to do it because I want to bulk up.
You can't.
It's a Schedule III substance.
Yet they're acting as if it's something that is like aspirin, which is nonsense.
And one thing that Biden's lawyer said that really, really annoyed me, she acted as if human beings are like Plato.
That all it is is you add testosterone to this human being and you get male characteristics.
You add estrogen to this human being, you get female characteristics.
No, you're born male or female.
And it really matters what that baseline is.
And it's critically important for the health of these kids that the state is able to take that into account.
You don't block puberty if you don't have an actual illness of precocious puberty, right?
There are medical reasons to use these drugs, and they're non-medical reasons.
And the state is the one that's able to say the risks are too great.
And especially here, we know the risks are overwhelming as opposed to just letting nature take its course.
Where do you think?
I know it's hard to glean listening to oral arguments which way the court is going to go here, but I kind of got the strong impression.
You were in the courtroom.
You may have a better perspective than me, Alan Wilson, state attorney general for South Carolina.
But I got the impression that they're not going to be successful in this effort, and the states will be able to make whatever laws they want.
But then there's a whole other level of constitutionality here, and that is parental rights, in my view, because states like California and Minnesota allow gender-affirming care for minors without parental consent.
That to me is completely unacceptable because that's the elimination and removal of all parental rights.
Sean, I got a distinct impression that the court, at least the majority conservative members of the court, did not want to go down this rabbit hole.
This is a very slippery slope.
Obviously, one of the questions was raised, I want to say it was Justice Alito or Kavanaugh, how this would affect men and women's sports.
And they're trying to not have these two things kind of be conflated with each other.
So I got a distinct impression based on the questions of at least five of the six conservative members of the court.
Justice Gorches Gorsches didn't ask any questions that I heard, but from the questions that I heard asked by the conservative members, they seemed very skeptical and cynical about opening Pandora's box.
There's a reason you have 25 states passing these restrictions and the other states are not or going the opposite direction.
There's a reason why the UK, Chile, Norway, Sweden, Finland, all these countries around the world are backing up from this because the science is so unsound.
And I don't think, or at least there's so much conflict and there's so many different varying points.
I don't think the court wants to put itself in the place of being the arbiter of what is good and bad science.
And I think they're going to leave that to the state.
So I don't think that they're going to rule for the government.
I think they're going to rule with the state of Tennessee and all the other 25 states like ours who pass similar laws.
All right, quick break, right back.
We'll continue more with Roger Severino, more with the Attorney General of South Carolina, Alan Wilson.
And then your call's coming up, 800-941-Sean.
As we continue, we are in Long Island for the sixth annual Fox Nation Patriot Awards.
Donald J. Trump in the House tonight.
It's going to be a blast.
I hope you'll watch on Fox Nation.
All right, we continue now.
We're discussing Supreme Court oral arguments from yesterday with Roger Severino and Attorney General for South Carolina, Alan Wilson.
What do we do with states like California?
I know it wasn't at issue or part of this particular case being argued before the court, Roger Severino, but what do we do about California?
What do we do about Minnesota?
What do we do about, I guess, elected officials that think they know better than parents and they want to be able to offer such care to minors without parental consent?
To me, that's unconscionable because in many cases, these treatments are irreversible, and it's a lifelong decision.
And somehow they think they know better than parents.
And I'm sorry, but I think parents ought to have a say in their children's health care.
I mean, for crying out loud.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And California is trying to get in between the parents and their kids by becoming a so-called gender sanctuary state, where if you have any inkling that you want to get this sort of treatment, and I hesitate, I don't think people should call it gender affirming because if a father wants to say to a son, hey, I want to support you in being a boy, you know, that's gender affirming, right?
And what they're saying is to take a kid away from the parents behind their backs in the schools and say to a boy, yeah, we think you're a girl, and we're going to treat you like a girl without telling your parents.
We're going to give it a new name, new pronoun, and not tell your parents.
And by the way, in states like California, there are cases where parents have lost custody because they have not gone along with state gender ideology.
Talk about an interference with parental rights.
Now, this was lurking in the background of the case.
It wasn't raised and it won't be decided, but that's going to be the next issue.
Can't a state like California.
Oh, that's definitely going to be an issue.
And parents will, that eventually will appear before the Supreme Court.
There's no doubt about it.
Anyway, Roger Severino, thank you.
Attorney General, South Carolina, Alan Wilson, thank you.
800-941-Sean on number if you want to be a part of the program.
This is what's right with America.
You're listening to the Sean Hannity Show.
Hi, 25 to the top of the hour, 800-941, Sean.
You want to be a part of the program?
Don't forget tonight, 8 o'clock, it starts the sixth annual Fox Nation Patriot Awards.
I have the honor.
I'm going to be the MC this year.
The recipient of the Patriot of the Year will be here.
We are in New York, my triumphant return to Long Island.
And yeah, obviously it's sold out, but it's going to be a fun night.
I hope you can watch FoxNation.com.
And it's just going to be a great night.
Basically, we honor people that never get any credit.
We honor unsung heroes.
We honor the people that really make the country great and do great things that nobody ever hears about.
And it's so different from the Academy Awards, the Grammys, the Tony's, the CMAs, this and that awards.
The only thing I ask is that nobody in the audience, if I crack a joke, is going to come up on stage and try and slap me in the face.
Good luck to them if they do.
Sensei will be nearby.
Not that I need him.
He's trained me well.
But it's going to be a fun night.
Donald Trump, Patriot of the Year.
It's going to be a very emotional night in many ways.
And I think it'll inspire you.
And I'm very honored to be a part of it.
I only wish it was in Florida, not New York.
It's my only complaint.
It's a little baby complaint.
It's not a big complaint.
Anyway, you know the feeling when you're about to cut into that delicious, juicy steak you took all the time to prepare.
You're hoping it tastes as perfect as it looks on the outside.
You cut into it.
Well, you don't have to worry anymore, ever.
Well, what do you mean, Hannity?
I'm going to give you the answer.
Chef IQ Sense, it makes it possible.
You will be a master chef.
It'll be perfect every single time.
Now, how is that possible?
It is a modern, completely wireless cooking thermometer that eliminates undercooking, overcooking of your food, no matter how you cook it.
Now, Chef IQ Sense, designed to withstand extreme heat, it can even survive in your deep fryer.
Whether you're grilling or roasting or baking Chef IQ Sense, it guarantees that your chicken, your pork, your meat, your fish is going to come out exactly to your preferred income.
And using Chef IQ Sense, it's simple.
You insert the wireless probe into your food.
You choose your desired doness on the Chef IQ app, and it's going to tell you it's ready.
It's perfect every time.
You'll get it perfect every time.
If you're looking for a great gift for a loved one or yourself this holiday season, anyway, go to their website, chefiq.com, or just go stop by your local Costco.
You can pick one up there and join the hundreds of thousands of us, frankly, that cook perfect meals every time.
You can burn your food, you can undercook your food, you have to put your food back in the fire.
No, perfect every time.
ChefIQ.com.
Very disturbing.
And it's almost mind-numbing how hateful people can be.
So you have this former, this was on MediaIte, the liberal website, and it says, we want these executives dead.
What do you mean you want these executives dead?
How do you say such a thing?
Now, this was said by Taylor Lorenz, melting down in an extended celebration of what happened to United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
He was gunned down in the middle of New York City.
This happened yesterday morning.
The NYPD commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said the shooting was not a random act of violence, but had all the hallmarks of an assassination.
I want to be clear.
At this time, every indication is that it was premeditated, pre-planned, and a targeted attack.
Anyway, we want these executives dead.
This is a former Washington Post, New York Times so-called journalist.
You know, she did everything here, but basically throw a party after this guy was assassinated.
You know, this executive, the CEO, leaves behind two sons, a wife.
She was shattered by her husband's murder.
And Taylor Lorenz sees this as a cause of celebration and apparently did it online in her first post referencing Thompson's death.
She shared a post about how Blue Cross, Blue Shield, one of United Healthcare's competitors, will no longer pay for anesthesia for full-length for some surgeries.
And some people wonder why we want these executives dead.
Wow, pretty sick stuff.
And, you know, legislative idea, somebody writes, and she says she endorses it.
Healthcare executives and their families must be on the cheapest plan their company offers, and they aren't allowed to seek other care.
Okay, here we go.
Nationalized healthcare.
Now, listen to this.
And this is not the only case.
This is what's frustrating about this.
There are many other people all over social media.
And here's one lunatic.
I don't know who it is.
You know, calls, you know, celebrates the killing of this CEO, calls for more insurance CEOs to be killed.
And by the way, meanwhile, the FBI is going after, you know, moms that go to school board meetings and peacefully protesting pro-life people, you know, looking at them as possible domestic terrorists.
Listen.
So the CEO of the multi-billion dollar United Healthcare Insurance Company was shot and killed this morning in New York City.
And I will say that it is pretty tragic that the shooter was only able to get one of them, but it's a good start.
I mean, it's a good foundation.
We can only move up from here.
And before any of you come at me with, oh my God, I can't believe you would say that, go f yourself.
Seriously, go f yourselves.
How many husbands do you think have had to bury their wives because their wife's cancer treatment was denied?
How many parents do you think have had to bury their children because whatever health care treatment the child needed was denied?
Or they had to jump through hoop after hoop after hoop after hoop until finally the treatment, the sickness had progressed so far.
The treatment just wasn't an option anymore.
So, yeah, I would say that this is probably a good start.
A good start assassinating the CEO of a major health care company.
I'm telling you, as Bob Grant used to say, hey, ladies and gentlemen, it's sick.
It is getting sicker.
Well, this is, you know, pretty sick, Adam Schiff.
I'll tell you that really sick and dark and evil.
And if you don't like their policies, well, just go to your Obamacare exchange.
How much you want to bet a lot of these critics?
and I'm not, I'm just guessing here, we're big supporters of Obamacare.
Keep your doctor, keep your plan, average family saved $2,500 a year.
Yeah, well, millions of Americans lost their doctors.
Millions lost their plans.
Almost 45% of the country has one Obamacare exchange option.
And, oh, one little other detail: the average premium has gone up anywhere between 200 and 300% per American.
So much for saving money.
Anyway, to our busy telephones, we go.
Let's say hi to Mary is in Wisconsin.
Mary, hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
Thanks for being with us.
Welcome to the sixth annual Fox Nation Patriot Awards.
We are in Long Island.
We're in New York.
It is my triumphant return.
I just want to talk about the prefrontal cortex.
That part of the brain that is behind the forehead does not mature until the late 20s for boys and girls.
And that part of the brain is responsible for decision-making.
Prior to that maturity of that part of the brain, the only thing that matters to that child is societal acceptance and peer relationships.
So that is why people can talk them into taking things to change their sex if they think they can do that.
By the way, you're raising a great point.
Men's brains do not fully form.
Well, some people, women may argue never.
I'm just saying.
But they don't fully form until they're about 25 or 26 years old.
Now, that's if you follow the science.
But putting that part aside, we're talking about minors here.
And then you got the added burden of government thinking they know best and government thinking that they should make the decision and frankly just push parents off to the side.
That bothers me.
And if every parent would know that you should not tell your child that this is okay to take this drug to prevent you from ever having a baby someday until you're 27 or 25.
Well, but let me play devil's advocate.
They're going to say, yeah, but what if the parents don't want the child to make a life-altering decision and that they should wait till adulthood to make sure that they're really serious about it?
No, I want what I want when I want it.
Now, and there's the state saying, sure, you want to eat McDonald's for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack in between on pizza and hot dogs.
I mean, that's pretty much what the state is saying here.
And that's the state of California, the state of Minnesota.
Right, and even Wisconsin.
And I tried calling a clinic to inquire about what they're doing, and they said, do you have a child here?
And I said, no.
And they said, well, we can't talk to you.
But I think, you know, it all started with Obamacare when you were talking about it.
Then, up until you're 26 years old, you could pay for your child to have health care, but you couldn't know what they're getting health care from.
You know what this is?
This is nuts.
All of this ends January 20th.
Donald Trump's not going to put up with this.
And you know what?
When it comes to schools and DEI and the workplace and education, how about we return to very simple, fundamental, basic things at school, reading, writing, math, science, history, and maybe how about the golden rule?
And you can replace every HR department.
You know, love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul.
I guess you can't mention God in the workplace either.
Although, if you're Chick-fil-A, you can, and you can dictate whatever policy you want, and you should be in a free society.
And then, you know, treat your neighbors the way you want to be treated.
Treat others the way you want to be treated.
And treat people with respect.
There you go.
I can sum it up in one page, and then you can get rid of HR departments all around the country.
Hallelujah.
And, you know, every child should know the Ten Commandments because some of them are never learned.
They don't learn that at home.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not lie.
Before the 1960, there were back-to-back Supreme Court decisions about prayer in school.
They used to have prayer in school, Bible reading in school.
We never became a theocracy as liberals now argue.
Anyway, I got a roll.
Thank you, Mary.
Appreciate the call.
Let us go to Ann in East Tennessee next on the Sean Hannity Show.
Ann, how are you?
Glad you called.
I think your area got really hit hard by Hurricane and Helene also like North Carolina.
You know, we did.
And I really appreciate you taking my call today.
I wanted to let you know, and we're so thankful you had mentioned people helping people.
And, you know, the true test of this is something like a disaster like Helene.
I personally was in a tent until a few days ago.
I have a home.
It's nothing, no mansion, but it's a comfortable small home, which I still can't access because my driveway has a landslide of about a quarter mile in it.
So I've been displaced.
And so many people down here are very, very forgotten.
You know, we're right outside of Boone, North Carolina.
Cove Creek in the Boone area.
By the way, Boone is where the Graham family is from.
Yes, it is.
And I'll tell you, I have to be, I have to tell you that I would not be with a roof over my head if it weren't for Samaritan's Purse, the Rubicon guys, Grindstone Ministries, a couple of folks like that who came out and literally went door to door.
We're still living in an area just over the Tennessee state line in a little area called Trade, population 400.
And it's the only main road that goes between, say, Boone and 81, any of the big major highways.
And it's a gorge with a cute little creek in it that basically erased homes and the roadway.
It's due to be opened at the first of the year, but we're really forgotten here.
The news has not covered this part of the country.
Asheville is certainly in just as bad a shape, but there are some enclaves here that without the help of people helping each other in the communities in these groups, they literally have come out and, you know, over two days give us a place to live just one hand at a time, moving literally tons of rocks and sand and silt so that we could actually have a place to sleep.
I'm so grateful for that, but I just want the world to know that we are all still here.
We're in a lot of different places down here in the South, and we are grateful for, you know, some of the donations that have come in.
By the way, FEMA showed up, I think, a week and a half ago, which was so fabulous of them.
Did you get your rejection letter yet?
Because that's next.
You know, I'm not going to go.
I just don't think it's something I want to get involved in.
I don't know all the rumors swirling around, but.
Well, I don't think if you need assistance, the government, if the government doesn't protect us, this is why law and order matters.
If we don't have a strong military that protects us from our adversaries, if government isn't there for Americans during natural disasters, but yet they're given hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine and to Africa and to every country around the face of the earth, and we're not taking care of Americans first.
That's why I like Congressman Stuby's bill, which says, no, if there's a natural disaster, we're going to stop foreign aid and take care of Americans first.
And in the meantime, I urge people, I have to run because of the constraints of time.
I apologize.
But samaritanspurse.org, Operation Hilo.
We have a link on Hannity.com.
Neighbor helping neighbor.
These groups need help so that they can help our neighbors in need because Joe and Kamala pretty much abandoned them.
It's unbelievable.
800-941 Sean, as we continue.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
As we now head into the Fox Nation, the sixth annual Fox Nation Patriot Awards.
Donald Trump Patriot of the Year, we honor unsung heroes that do amazing work, inspiring work every single day.
Hope you'll tune in.
It's on FoxNation.com.
All begins at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
Hope you'll join us tonight.
We'll see you on Fox Nation and watch Donald Trump.